Private sector can play a part in hospitals

Treasurer
Wayne Swan
needs to get out more. If his interest in hospitals extended as far as Western Australia, he would see the hospital privatisation model he is so fired up about has been working well at Perth’s Joondalup Health Campus where, since 1996, private and public patients have been treated at a facility that is now operated by Ramsay Health Care.

A privately owned hospital that treats public patients is still a rarity in this country but it is certainly not unproven, so it is hard to see why the Queensland government’s decision to involve the private sector in the supply of a new hospital has provoked such a furious response from the Treasurer.

Surely the Commonwealth and the states should co-operate on seeking the best value for the $37 billion they collectively spend on public hospitals each year. As Gary Sturgess pointed out in this newspaper on Thursday, privatisation can result in cost savings but it can also deliver better results.

When the incoming
O’Farrell
government announced a preference for more private sector involvement in hospitals, there was no storm of protest from Canberra. And nor has the
Gillard
government railed against WA. So why all the posturing and hollow threats now?

The health sector is ripe for reform. Unfortunately the Gillard government’s hard-won changes are now caught-up in a mud-slinging contest between cash-strapped states and Canberra stirring up voters’ fears that a private hospital is a bad hospital.